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A Christmas Homily: 2013
Christmas comes at a time of year where we, perforce, count our blessings, tally our losses and generally reflect on the year past. We find this action common across national boundaries and racial divides and, all too commonly, it ends there. The accountants take of the past year and if the blessings outweigh the losses,…
Remembering Columbine – 10 Years Later
It began as an ordinary, early spring day – teachers going about their business of teaching students; students doing what normal high school students are wont to do. At 1140, it dramatically, tragically changed with 12 students and a teacher dead and 23 others physically wounded – many more emotionally scarred. Two years, four months…
Reflections: Smuggler’s Blues (VI) – The Pilot
(Part IV) YV-411, airborne over Venezuela. The sky was growing a deeper shade of blackish-blue as the South American evening crawled slowly along. The shock of having the business end of a 9mm pointed at his head had begun to subside as he went about the business of flying the Beechcraft. Consulting the hand-held GPS that accompanied…
Ave Atque Vale
I lost a friend today. We have lost a friend, a father, husband — a comrade in arms. Fellow aviator and blogger-at-arms, Neptunus Lex, was killed earlier today when the F-21 Kfir he was flying in support of Top Gun’s adversary squadron crashed at NAS Fallon. No word on the cause as yet. …
Echoes of a Loss
“Two days after she learned that a roadside bomb had blown up her husband’s Humvee in Afghanistan, Dena Yllescas began typing her first blog post for family in Nebraska. Her daughters — ages 7 years and 9 months — were asleep. Friends, who had rushed over with casseroles and cigarettes, had gone home. The 29-year-old…
Reflections: "And the Sky Full of Stars"
“The stars … I miss the stars…†So went my response to a recent query from someone who noticed a certain wistfulness about me whilst talking of the sea. “What do you miss most about it?†they asked. To be sure, I missed the flying, the sense of purposeful direction and immediate feedback entailed with…